Fuel cells are promising devices for sustainable energy supply, as they efficiently convert the chemical energy of hydrogen into electricity without emitting harmful exhaust gases. Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are already successfully used in e.g. stationary fuel cell systems such as ENE-Farm (Japan) and fuel cell vehicles such as the Honda Clarity Fuel Cell. However, high material costs impede a wide-spread commercialization. The development of new membrane materials, cheap yet providing high performance, is an important contribution to the acceleration of fuel cell commercialization.

However, despite intensive research on membrane materials over the past 50 years, Nafion is still dominant. Unconventional materials may be needed to prepare membranes that can compete with Nafion. Nanotechnology has provided novel solutions and performance enhancement in many fields of research due to the interesting and unique properties of materials at the nanoscale (< 100 nm). Therefore nanomaterials are also a promising route to the fabrication of next-generation fuel cell membranes. Low dimensional proton conductors have shown intriguing properties such as ultra-low gas permeability, high conductivity anisotropy due to ultra-fast proton transport in nanoconfined conduction pathways, and relatively low cost.One and two dimensional proton conductors were investigated for their properties and performance as fuel cell membranes. Latest results of our research will be reported.